Many pages and posts refer to interesting resources and make them accessible by way of a hyperlink. Those that I find particularly interesting, thought-provoking, and relevant are also listed (with a short description) here. Not everything that I find really interesting ends up in a post. So this page deserves a visit on its own merits.
MAPS
- The VisitBrabant interactive hiking route map that allows for creating and printing your own route from junction to junction/downloading its gpx track (English)
- The VisitBrabant interactive cycling route map that allows for creating and printing your own routefrom junction to junction/downloading its gpx track (English)
- A VisitBrabant full screen interactive map of hiking, cycling, mountainbiking and horse riding routes (no facility to create and print/download your own route) (English)
- Wandelnet interactive hiking route map for the whole of The Netherlands. Allows to create routes from junction to junction but also to draw your own and then print or download a gpx track – only in Dutch
- Fietsplatform interactive cycling route map for the whole of The Netherlands. Allows to create routes from junction to junction and long distance cycling paths and then print or download a gpx track (English)
- Routedatabank interactive hiking map for the whole of the Netherlands. Shows all hiking routes, not only the integrated networks, including the GR long distance footpaths, and hikes managed by other providers (no facility to create and print/download your own route) – only in Dutch
- Routedatabank interactive cycling map for the whole of the Netherlands. Shows all cycling routes, not only the integrated networks, including the long distance cycling routes (no facility to create and print/download your own route) – only in Dutch
WALKING
Alexandra Horowitz‘ On Looking, a walker’s guide to the art of observation
Investigation of how knowing about stuff makes you look out for things otherwise unseen and enrich your connection with your environment. See my blog post for a video of Horowitz talking about the book to make up your mind if reading the book might be worth your while.
Rebecca Solnit Wanderlust: a history of walking
Magisterial Glassperlenspiel book about walking, nature appreciation, urbanism and many other things. For a video conversation with Solnit to make up your mind if reading the book might be worth your while: see here.
Geoff Nicholson The lost art of walking
A lighter version of Solnit, less intellectual and thus an easier but still very worthwhile read. For a video of the writer taking someone for a walk that exemplifies his personal approach to walking: see here.
RUNNING
Vybarr Cregan-Reid Footnotes. How running makes us human
First book about running that fully embraces my perspective of it as a way to be in an environment. By a lecturer of English lit, very intellectual but chock-a-block with interesting insights, quotes and astute ways of verbal expression. Short videos in which he talks about running allowing you to make up your mind if reading the book might be worth your while: see here and here.
Richard Askwith Running free
Good book about running by the author of Fell running classic ‘Feet in the Clouds’. At heart a pamphlet questioning Big Running (business). Lots of mindful running arguments, the joys of natural environments and other subjects with a great potential to become Happinez bullshit but he manages to stay grounded and muddy most of the time. Watch him talk about fell running here.
Haruki Murakami What I talk about when I talk about running
Not many sports have a nobel worthy writer willing to explain their personal obsession with it, and their obsession with a pretty extreme version of it art that.
CYCLING
Melissa & Chris Bruntlett The Dutch blueprint for urban vitality. Building the cycling city
Superbly readable overview of everything that matters regarding (turning cities into) cycling-centric planning. Great resource book. Watch them talk about building a cycling city, see here.
SPORTS-EXERCISE and BODIES
David Epstein The Sports Gene. Inside the science of extraordinary athletic performance
The 10,000 hour rule ‘against’ nature. Obviously both have value. Which is what the author says. Basically a popular science book. Very instructive and well-written. For a video conversation between him and Malcolm Gladwell who popularized the 10,000 hour rule, see here.
Daniel Lieberman The story of the human body. Evolution, health, and disease
Overview by ‘barefoot professor’ Lieberman. Thorough, very measured, and thus also a bit boring, but interesting. Running is pretty central to his thesis on what we are made for, so those who have been inspired by ‘Born to Run’ should certainly read this way more thorough treatment of our species as persistence hunters. Watch him talk about what our species is adapted for here.
EINDHOVEN
Paul Groenendijk & Piet Vollaard – Eindhoven Architecture Guide: the 100 best buildings
Very useful and accessible guide to explore the city, takings its architecture as your focus. Reviewed here.
BRABANT
NETHERLANDS
OTHER cities
Books that celebrate quoting Rebecca Solnit on New York “the complexity, the layers and tangles, the cross-pollinations and conflicts, the hidden and overlooked, the ugly and beautiful” aspects of cities.
Nonstop Metropolis: An Atlas of Maps Reclaiming New York’s Untold Stories and Unseen Populations
the city books of Jan Rothuizen
A Dutch visual artists with several books on Amsterdam, of which the soft atlas, and its successor (unfortunately not yet? – available in English) veranderstad Amsterdam in particular make you wanting you to go out and explore.
URBANISM
Geoffrey West Scale. the universal laws of life and death in organisms, cities and companies
Admittedly the most abstract analysis of the urban phenomenon – in the broader context of the rest of life, taking a ‘physics’ of all things biological/social social approach. Fascinating. Watch the man speak here.
Carolyn Steel Hungry city. How food shapes our lives
One abstraction level down. Very enlightening about our dependency on systems to make urban living possible. Watch her present on the topic of feeding cities here.
Kate Ascher The Works: Anatomy of a City
An older but stunning eyeopener for all us non-experts about what it takes to keep a city running. You’ll never look at a city in the same way. Watch the author present on her book here.
Marco te Brommelstroet Mobility language matters
By our ‘ cycling professor’: academic accompaniment to a book about Dutch transport policy (only in Dutch), which argues for reclaiming streets and neighbourhoods for citizens’ interaction and kids play. The academic background pub (free download – click on the linked title) is about taking the language used to conceptualize and discuss mobility more serious because its current car-centrism frames and imprisons our conceptual and strategic abilities to redesign for a more livable and sustainable future. Watch Marco make his argument for reclaiming the street here.
run and walk the eindhoven region 